The approval of 11 new and imported rice seed varieties — seven hybrids and four open-pollinated — by the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council last week heralds new realities for the crop. The high-yielding imported hybrids are in, and basmati — a premium local variety — seems to be on its way out.

Once hybrids take hold of the local crop, even those open-pollinated (OP) varieties would have no chance. Thus it would be hybrid ruling the roost.

The undermining of basmati, as we know it, has long been underway, both regionally and globally. Pakistan tried to resist it, both commercially and legally. However, now it seems to be losing on both ends, and resigning to market forces. The approval of seven hybrid varieties, which came on the heels of the 35pc acreage already under imported hybrids, only show how fast window is closing on basmati and other local rice varieties.

In the last decade or so, the Indians have rewritten the definition of basmati, and got it successfully accepted by a larger chunk of basmati consumers. Drawing on non-basmati parentage, it developed (Pusa-1121) a basmati variety that it has successfully been selling around the world.

Since the variety is high yielding, Indian farmers adopted it quickly and gave exporters a huge base for increasing exports. With the cost of production down, the exporters quickly embraced it and made huge profits, and, finally, being closer — in grain and taste — to traditional Pakistani basmati, it was also accepted by the consumers, especially ethnic, around the globe.

The government may be reminded that the absence of institutions to ensure quality of imported hybrids would continue haunting it if it does not create the required paraphernalia

On the other hand, Pakistan’s current decades-old basmati seed started losing hugely on production but also became susceptible to different kinds of diseases. These developments added hugely to the cost of production, and took the rice out of fiscal reach of consumers and exporters.

As exporters experienced high domestic prices, they lost edge to the Indian competitors. The slide in export, which began a few years ago, is still on: from 1.2 million tonnes, they have come down to 700,000 tonnes.

Pakistan not only lacks research but is also importing germ-plasm for everything called rice. Even the currently approved varieties have Filipino parentage.

With its research institution without funds and policy direction coming neither from the federation nor from the provinces, high-yielding hybrid varieties sounds to be only reasonable natural choice, and Pakistan is now officially entering the arena.

It does not, in any way, mean that basmati would flew out of vogue; it would continue having presence in substantial domestic and relatively small international market niche. However, its pre-eminence as only premium variety would increasingly be lost.

The government may also be reminded that the absence of institutions to ensure quality of hybrids would continue haunting it if it does not create the required paraphernalia.

Once the import process of hybrid starts, it would be a herculean task to ensure the quality of the seed, or whether the import belongs to the same variety, which was approved in the first place.

The world has moved to super hybrids and new seeds are coming thick and fast. How Pakistan plans to cope with that kind of situation, the approving institutions need to come up with required response.

Hybrids are also notorious for behaving differently in varying temperatures. With climate change bringing in huge fluctuations in temperatures, how does Pakistan plan to deal with the phenomenon?

Even important would be the mechanism to compensate for individual farmers’ loss because of crop failure in patches. Though approval is granted only to those varieties that suit in majority of ecological zones within the country, it still leaves huge grey areas that could cause failures at individual farmers’ levels.

Apart from approving new varieties, the policy makers also need to sit together and decide what they plan to do with the overall crop.

How much space should basmati have? How much hybrids could be allowed? Which hybrid has international appeal and which does not? What would be the monitoring mechanism to ensure Pakistan does not continue losing export market; after all, it is $2 billion export earnings.

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, May 11th , 2015

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